Raw Foods Diet Weight Loss

There are many good reasons why thousands of people all over the United States and the world are using different Raw Foods Diet Weight Loss methods to lose a tremendous amount of weight. However, going through the raw foods diet weight loss system is not only about losing weight, it is about a lifestyle choice that is focused around eating better to make yourself much more healthier in general, in addition to increasing your immune system to fight against sickness and other to prevent health problems that could plague you later in life. Many people ask how does eating only raw foods makes the person lose weight so quickly? The reason why eating only raw foods works so well in losing weight is that you are eating only natural foods, and this means cutting out unnecessary ingredients such as various fats, sugars, and carbohydrates.

How The Raw Foods Diet Weight Loss Process Works

The most important factor to remember when going on a raw foods diet weight loss plan is to only eat raw foods and to stay away from foods completely that are not. It doesn’t matter if you are a birthday party or you are going for a snack, if you are serious about losing weight fast, you must STRICTLY ONLY EAT RAW FOODS! There are tons of excellent and tasty foods you can eat that are raw foods and will help you live a healthier life.
The following foods are all part of the raw foods diet weight loss plan:

• Any types of fruits and vegetables – These are the staple foods of the raw foods diet, however, it is important to remember to not heat up the vegetables or fruit using a stove or microwave, as these methods kill many of the valuable nutrients needed in this diet and to lose weight.
• Raw Nuts – These are a great way to get the protein in your diet that you body desperately needs, but remember to only eat raw nuts and not flavored ones as these have unnecessary calories and fat. Also, it is better to eat nuts in their shells, as these are ripe with the nutrients necessary in partaking in the raw foods diet weight loss program.
• Various Seeds – Seeds such as sunflower seeds are a great snacking food that is great for the raw foods diet.
• Seaweed – Seaweed is a great snack and can be found in many supermarkets and Asian markets. This healthy snack not only tastes great, but is a great addition to any meal plan that is on the raw foods plan.

Videos of Individuals Who have Used The Raw Foods Diet Weight Loss To Great Success

Below are several videos that show off the dramatic changes your body will take when partaking in eating only raw foods. Because you are getting only the essential nutrients, you will cut out a ton of calories and fat from diet which will cause your body to shed pounds at an accelerated pace. Scott Jackson’s story of how he lost over 100 pounds going through the raw foods diet weight loss system is just one of the many success stories about normal people who have simply tried eating only raw foods for a few months and after they have had such massive success, they have incorporated eating only raw foods into their daily life.

If you are serious about losing weight, than going on a raw foods diet weight loss program is a great way to lose weight fast, and in a healthy manner. However, you must stick to eating only raw foods, and not indulge in eating sweets and other foods if you want the raw food diet weight loss plan to work, however, you will be pleased with how you look and feel after you have completed your diet. If you want to lose weight safely, and healthy try the raw foods diet weight loss method of eating healthier and you will like the results, you can count on it.

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Food Combining Diet

The Food Combining Diet is based on the theory that different food groups can be digested optimally when eaten in certain combinations. The concept was introduced by Dr. William Howard Hay in the 1920s. Another similar theory was introduced by Gary Martin in the 1970s.

Proteins and starches should be eaten at separate meals and fruits should be eaten alone. Starches are best absorbed when eaten alone or with vegetables because the pH of the digestive tract is alkaline.

However, the digestion of proteins requires more acid and when proteins and starches are combined, the digestive environment is neither acid or alkaline for these groups of food to be well absorbed.

The Food Combining diet has been successful in Europe for many years.

It is mostly directed towards weight loss, increasing your metabolic rate and facilitating the removal of toxins from the body. A wide variety of foods is allowed but the principles of combining food have to be followed.

Examples of foods that should not be combined are potatoes with meat or fish, bacon and eggs with bread. There are a lot of neutral foods that give you a wide range of choices and there are no forbidden foods.

The theory behind food combining is that you can easily digest carbohydrates and proteins if you eat them separately, the body will eliminate toxins better, the metabolic rate is increased and the body will store less fat.

A balanced diet plan combines food so as to provide an optimal supply of all the important nutrients. Fruits and vegetables are alkali forming foods, meat, game, fish, eggs or cheese are acid forming in their final end products in the body and the same is true for starches and carbohydrates. One of the major factors that contribute to weight gain is incomplete digestion of food. Incomplete food digestion can affect the nutrient absorption and result in fat and cholesterol build up in our bodies.

The food combining diet restricts the specific food you are eating at certain times in order to stimulate your metabolism to burn fat quickly.

Separating specific foods and consuming them in the right concentration and combination helps you digest them better and achieve fast weight loss.

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Diabetes Diet

Creating a Healthy Plan

A diabetes diet is a healthy-eating plan that controls the blood sugar. With a little help to get started, anyone can learn how to plan a meal based on an exchange list and counting carbohydrates. A diabetes diet is also known as medical nutrition therapy, but what it really means is eating a wide variety of nutritious foods in moderate amounts and adhering to regular meal times. Many people assume that it is necessary to restrict when they hear the word “diet.” However, a diabetes diet is based on eating foods high in nutrients and low in fat and calories. There is a major emphasis on whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. Actually, a diabetes diet is the ideal eating plan for nearly everyone with or without diabetes.

What is the Purpose?

People who have diabetes or are prediabetes should speak with their doctor or a dietition to help control the blood sugar level, also know as glucose level, and manage their weight. When the body receives excess fat and calories, it responds by creating an unhealthy rise in the blood glucose. If this is not checked regularly, it can lead to serious complications. These may include chronic problems, such as kidney, nerve, and heart damage. Losing weight can help those with type 2 diabetes to control their blood glucose far more easily in addition to the other health benefits that accompany getting down to a healthy weight. A diabetes diet can make losing weight an easier task than it usually is. Choosing healthy food and tracking eating habits can make a great difference in helping to manage the blood glucose level in order to keep it within a safe range.

Details Of A Diabetes Diet

Recommended Foods:

It is recommended that those with diabetes speak with a registered dietitian to help put together a meal plan based on the individual’s needs, goals, and lifestyle. They can even take into consideration each person’s unique tastes so that the diet is easier to follow. On the diabetes diet, quality is farm more important than quantity, so it is necessary to make each calorie count with these recommended foods.

Healthy Carbohydrates

Sugars, also known as simple carbohydrates, and starches, also known as complex carbohydrates, are broken down into blood glucose during the digestion process. While carbohydrates seem to have gotten a bad name over the years, there are healthy ones that should be eaten regularly. These include whole grains, vegetables, fruits, low-fat dairy products, and legumes, such as beans, peas, and lentils.

Fiber-rich Foods

Dietary fiber includes that parts of plant foods that the body is unable to digest or absorb. A healthy amount of fiber can decrease the risk of heart disease and help to control the blood sugar levels. Foods that are high in fiber includes nuts, legumes, fruits, vegetables, wheat bran, and whole-wheat flour.

Heart-healthy Fish

It is recommended that everyone eat fish at least twice a week as it is an alternative to high-fat meats. For example, cod, tuna, and halibut have less total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol than other meants and poultry. Salmon, herring, and mackerel have a high amount of omega-3 fatty acids. These promote heart health by lowering the fat in the blood, also called triglycerides. However, fish that is fried or high in mercury should be avoided. Tilefish, king mackerel, and swordfish should be kept to a minimum to avoid the levels of mercury.

Good Fats

It is a myth that all fat is bad. There are good fats, and these are foods that contain monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. They can be found in foods that are naturally fatty, such as avocados, walnuts, almonds, pecans, and certain oils (canola, olive, peanut). Unsaturated fats can help to lower cholesterol levels. However, they should be eating sparingly because they are high in calories.

Foods to Avoid:

Just as there are many foods that should be incorporated into a diabetes diet, there are also many foods that work against the goal of a healthy heart. As diabetes increases the risk for heart disease and stroke by accelerating the development of clogged and hardened arteries, heart-healthy foods are essential for well being.

Saturated Fats

A diabetes diet will often dicatate that the individual gets no more than 7 percent of their daily calories from saturated fat. This often cuts out high-fat dairy products and animal proteins, such as beef, sausage, bacon, and hot dogs.

Trans Fats

Trans fats are unhealthy for everyone, but they are especially bad for a diabetes diet. They are found in processed snacks, baked goods, margarine, and shortening. These foods should be completely avoided.

Cholesterol

Individuals with diabetes should have no more than 200 milligrams (mg) of cholesterol per day. Sources of cholesterol include high-fat dairy products and high-fat animal proteins. Avoid egg yolks, shellfish, liver, and other organ meats.

Sodium

High levels of sodium increases the blood pressure. People should try to have less than 2,000 mg of sodium per day by purchasing low sodium products and avoiding extremely salty foods.

Creating A Plan

Type 2 Diabetes Diet

There are a couple different approaches to putting together a diabetes diet that keeps tha blood glucose level within a normal and healthy range. One or a combination of methods may be needed.

Counting Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates may have the greatest impact on the glucose level because they are what breaks down into glucose directly. It is important to time when to have carbohydrates and the amount that is necessary.

The Exchange System

With the exchange system, goods are grouped into categories. One serving in a group is known as an “exchange” and has the same amount of carbohydrates, fat, protein, and calories as a serving of every other food in the same group. Each exchange will have the same effect on the blood glucose based on what is needed for that specific meal or snack.

Glycemic Index

The glycemic index measures foods based on the increase in blood sugar that comes from that food. A high glycemic index will increase the blood sugar more than a food with a low glycemic index. However, those that use this system need to be careful as a food with a low glycemic index are not necessarily healthier.

Results

Embracing the diabetes diet is the best way to keep blood glucose level under control and to prevent complications from diabetes. In addition, the diet offers many other benefits. It can reduce the risk of heart and other cardiovascular diseases, certain types of cancer, and low bone mass in the future. The diabetes diet can work wonders in the health of those with or without diabetes.

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The Basics of a Healthy Diabetes Diet

Contrary to what you may have heard, there is no “diabetes diet,” per se — and that’s good news! The foods recommended for adiabetes diet to control blood glucose (or blood sugar) are good for those with diabetes — and everyone else. This means that you and your family can eat the same healthy foods at mealtime. However, for people with diabetes, the total amounts of carbohydrates consumed each day must be monitored carefully. Of the different components of nutrition – carbohydrates, fats, and proteins — carbohydrates have the greatest influence on blood sugar levels. Most people with diabetes also have to monitor total fat consumption and protein intake, too.

To keep your blood sugar levels in check, you need to make healthy food choices, exercise regularly, and take the medicines your health care provider prescribes. A dietitian can provide in-depth nutrition education to help you develop a personalized meal plan that fits your lifestyle and activity level, and meets your medical needs.

Is Your Type 2 Diabetes Under Control?

Learn the ABCs of a Diabetes Diet

The goal of nutrition for people with diabetes is to attain the ABCs of diabetes. The A stands for the A1c or hemoglobin A1c test, which measures average blood sugar over the previous three months. B is for blood pressure, and C is for cholesterol. People with diabetes should attain as near as normal blood sugar control (HbA1c), blood pressure, and healthy cholesterol levels.

Alcohol and Diabetes

Use discretion when drinking alcohol if you have diabetes. Alcohol is processed in the body very similarly to the way fat is processed, and alcohol provides almost as many calories as fat. If you choose to drink alcohol, only drink it occasionally and when your blood sugar level is well-controlled. It’s a good idea to check with your doctor to be sure drinking alcohol is acceptable.

Diabetes and Glycemic Index

For years, researchers have tried to determine what causes blood sugar levels after meals to soar too high in those with diabetes. Potential culprits have included sugar, carbohydrates, and starches, among other foods. The glycemic index is a ranking that attempts to measure the influence that each particular food has on blood sugar levels. It takes into account the type of carbohydrates in a meal and its effect on blood sugar.

Foods that are low on the glycemic index appear to have less of an impact on blood sugar levels after meals. People who eat a lot of low glycemic index foods tend to have lower total body fat levels. High glycemic index foods generally make blood sugar levels higher. People who eat a lot of high glycemic index foods often have higher levels of body fat, as measured by the body mass index (BMI).

Talk to your doctor, a registered dietitian, or a diabetes educator and ask if the glycemic index might work to help gain better control of your blood sugar levels.

The glycemic load takes into account the effect of the amount of carbohydrates in a meal. Both the type of carbohydrate and the amount have an effect on blood sugar.

Eating Right With Diabetes

If you have diabetes, it’s important to eat right every day to keep your blood sugar levels even and stay healthy. Here’s some easy tips:

• Be sure to eat a wide variety of foods. Having a colorful plate is the best way to ensure that you are eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, meats, and other forms of protein such as nuts, dairy products, and grains/cereals.
• Eat the right amount of calories to maintain a healthy weight.
• Choose foods high in fiber such as whole grain breads, fruit, and cereal. They contain important vitamins and minerals. You need 25 to 35 grams of fiber per day. Studies suggest that people with type 2 diabetes who eat a high fiber diet can improve their blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Similar results have been suggested in some studies in people with type 1 diabetes.

Serving Sizes and Diabetes

Be sure to eat only the amount of food in your diabetes meal plan. Excess calories result in excess fat and excess weight. In people with type 2 diabetes, excess body fat means less sensitivity to insulin. Weight loss in overweight and obese people with type 2 diabetes helps improve blood sugars and reduces those risk factors which lead to heart disease. Your dietitian can help you determine the appropriate serving sizes you need, depending on if you need to maintain your weight, gain weight, or lose weight, and if you have high or low blood sugar levels.

• In women with gestational diabetes, it’s important to eat multiple meals and snacks per day as recommended.
• Do not skip meals.
• Eat meals and snacks at regular times every day. If you are taking a diabetes medicine, eat your meals and take your medicine at the same times each day.

Note: If you are taking some of the newer diabetes drugs, some of these tips may not apply to you; ask your health care provider the tips you should follow.

The Sweet Truth about Food and Diabetes

You might have heard that, as a person with diabetes, you shouldn’t have any table sugar. While some health care providers continue to promote this, many — realizing that the average person lives in the real world and will probably indulge in a bit of sugar every now and then — have adopted a more forgiving view. Most experts now say that small amounts of sugar are fine, as long as they are part of an overall healthy meal plan. Table sugars do not raise your blood sugar any more than similar amounts of calories from starches, which is found in many foods that we consume. It is important to remember that sugar is just one type of carbohydrate.

When eating sugar, keep these tips in mind:

• Read food labels. Learn how to determine how much sugar or carbohydrates are in the foods that you eat.
• Substitute, don’t add. When you eat a sugary food, such as cookies, cakes, or candies, substitute them for another carbohydrate or starch (for example, potatoes) that you would have eaten that day. Make sure that you account for this in your carbohydrate budget for the day. If it is added to your meal for the day, then remember to adjust your insulin dose for the added carbohydrates so you can continue to maintain glucose control as much as possible. In other words, readjust your medications if you do add sugars to you meals.
• Sugary foods can be fattening. Many foods that have a lot of table sugar are very high in calories and fat. If you are watching your weight (and many people with diabetes must), you need to eat these foods in moderation!
• Check your blood sugar after eating sugary foods and talk to your health care provider about how to adjust your insulin if needed when eating sugars.
• Ultimately, the total grams of carbohydrates — rather than what the source of the sugar is — is what needs to be accounted for in the nutritional management of the person with diabetes.

Diabetes Diet Myths

Before you start a diabetes diet, get the facts. So many people believe that having diabetes means you must avoid sugar and carbohydrates at all cost, load up on protein, and prepare “special” diabetic meals apart from the family’s meals. Wrong! Most individuals with diabetes can continue to enjoy their favorite foods, including desserts, as long as they monitor the calories, carbs, and other key dietary components and keep a regular check on their blood glucose levels.

Get the facts and start enjoying the foods you love on a diabetes diet.

What Is the TLC Diet for Diabetes?

People with diabetes who have abnormal cholesterol levels will likely be placed on a diet known as a “TLC” diet. The TLC diet will help reduce the intake of cholesterol-raising nutrients. As part of this diet you may be asked to lose weight and increase physical activity levels — all of these are components that will help lower bad LDL cholesterol. Looking at food labels will help you become more knowledgeable about your intake of fats and cholesterol.

Specifically, the TLC diet calls for the following:

• Total fat consumption should be 25%-35% or less of total calories eaten per day.
• Saturated fats should be less than 7% of total calories eaten in a day.
• Polyunsaturated fats (from liquid vegetable oils and margarines low in trans fats) should be up to 10% of the total calories per day consumed.
• Monounsaturated fats (derived from vegetable sources like plant oils and nuts) should be up to 20% of total calories per day eaten.
• Carbohydrates should be 50%-60% of total calories per day eaten
• We should eat 20-30 grams of fiber per day. These can be derived from oats, barley, psyllium, and beans.
• The amounts of protein in the diet should equal about 15%-20% of total calories eaten per day.
• Cholesterol content of the diet should be less than 200 milligrams per day.

How Much Fat Is Acceptable on a Diabetes Diet?

People with diabetes have higher than normal risk for heart disease, stroke, and disease of the small blood vessels in the body. Controlling blood pressure and limiting the amount of fats in the diet will help reduce the risk of these complications.

Limiting the amounts of saturated fats, increasing the amount of regular exercise, and receiving medical treatment can lower bad LDL cholesterol. This has been repeatedly shown in medical studies to help people with diabetes reduce their risk of heart disease and reduce the risk of death if a heart attack does occurs in a diabetic person.

Artificial Sweeteners and Diabetes

Artificial sweeteners can be added to a variety of foods and beverages without adding more carbohydrates to your diabetes diet. Using non-caloric artificial sweeteners instead of sugar also greatly reduces calories in your favorite foods.

Artificial Sweeteners and Diabetes continued…

Keep in mind that foods with artificial sweeteners are not necessarily zero carbohydrates foods. Many have carbohydrates; therefore, you must read the food labels to determine the gram amounts per serving that these have in order to take into account the effect that these carbohydrates have on your glycemic control. Foods labeled with artificial sweeteners can affect your blood sugar.

As long as you are aware of the content of carbohydrates you can adjust your meal or medication to maintain blood sugar control. “Sugar free” means no sugar has been added, but you must remember these foods still contain carbohydrates which does affect your blood sugars.

Examples of artificial sweeteners you can use include:

• Aspartame
• Acesulfame-k
• Saccharine
• Sucralose
• Other non-nutritive sweeteners

Pregnant or breastfeeding women should avoid saccharine, and people who suffer from phenylketonuria should not use aspartame. People with phenylketonuria are unable to metabolize phenylalanine, an amino acid that’s a common part of many proteins.

Some artificial sweeteners — such as xylitol, mannitol, and sorbitol — have some calories and do slightly increase blood sugar levels.

The American Diabetes Association cautions that eating too much of any artificial sweetener can cause gas and diarrhea.

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The Real Reason Dieting Is So Hard, and Why It Matters for CEOs

What does dieting have to do with running a business?  Apparently, quite a bit.

According to a fascinating NY Times Magazine article entitled ‘Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?, researchers have recently discovered a paradox that helps to explain why dieting is so challenging:

1. In order not to eat, a dieter needs willpower.
2. In order to have willpower, a dieter needs to eat.

As we all know (and most of us have experienced at some point), dieting involves making a series of decisions to resist the temptation of eating food that you’ve committed not to eat.  Over the last several years researchers have discovered that (1) we have a finite store of mental energy for exercising self-control and making rational choices, (2) each decision we make depletes that store of mental energy (causing ‘ego depletion’), and  (3) the amount of glucose in our body directly impacts that store of mental energy.

Study 1: We actually have a limited amount of willpower
In one study mentioned in the article (also highlighted in the insightful book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath), researchers randomly assigned subjects into two groups – A and B, and told them they were undergoing a study of ‘taste perceptions’. Both groups sat around a table which had on it one bowl of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies and one bowl of radishes. Group A was told to please eat the radishes and to please not touch the cookies, as they were for a different experiment (which, as you can imagine, requires a great deal of willpower).  Group B was told the opposite, to please eat the cookies and not touch the radishes (not so much willpower required for that one). Each group was then asked to complete a set of extremely challenging geometry puzzles.  Here’s what they found: Subjects in Group A spent nearly 60% less time trying to solve the puzzles than subjects in Group B (8 minutes v. 19 minutes). Subjects in Group A had depleted their finite store of mental energy for exerting self-control, and simply didn’t have as much left over to devote to the geometry puzzle as those in Group B did.
Study 2: Each decision we make depletes our willpower and ability to make decisions
A more recent study showed that the same effect occurs when people have to make a number of decisions, rather than resist temptation.
According to the article’s description of the study: “a nearby department store was holding a going-out-of-business sale, so researchers from the lab went off to fill their car trunks with simple products … of sufficient quality to … appeal to college students. When they came to the lab, the students were told they would get to keep one item at the end of the experiment, but first they had to make a series of choices. Would they prefer a pen or a candle? A vanilla-scented candle or an almond-scented one? A candle or a T-shirt? A black T-shirt or a red T-shirt? A control group, meanwhile — let’s call them the nondeciders — spent an equally long period contemplating all these same products without having to make any choices. They were asked just to give their opinion of each product and report how often they had used such a product in the last six months.

Afterward, all the participants were given one of the classic tests of self-control: holding your hand in ice water for as long as you can. The impulse is to pull your hand out, so self-discipline is needed to keep the hand underwater. The deciders gave up much faster; they lasted 28 seconds, less than half the 67-second average of the nondeciders. Making all those choices had apparently sapped their willpower.”
Study 3: Glucose (sugar) directly impacts our willpower and decision-making ability
In a third study, researchers ran a similar set of tests to the one described in the first study with the chocolate chip cookies, in which students are asked to perform tasks requiring willpower.  In this study, the two groups were given the same tasks requiring the same amount of willpower, but one group was given lemonade mixed with sugar and the other group was given lemonade mixed with a diet sweetener. While both lemonades tasted the same, the sugar provided a burst of glucose while the sweetener did not.  Study after study showed that the sugar restored the willpower, while the artificial sweetener had no effect. “The glucose would at least mitigate the ego depletion and sometimes completely reversed it.”
Conservation of Energy
In Dr. Dan Siegel’s fascinating book Mindsight, he describes the mind as an “embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information.”  Essentially, these studies are showing that we only have so much mental energy and that impacts our ability to process information. Our limited mental energy begins to be drained from the moment we wake up as we (1) resisting temptation (which we do all day long when we work instead of play, eat a balanced diet, and avoid falling asleep at our desks), (2) make decisions and (3) use up the glucose in our bodies.
When our mental energy is drained, our brains start to conserve the energy normally used to think through consequences, leading us to (1) act impulsively, or (2) do nothing.  With our capacity to think through consequences diminished, we’re more likely to blow up at colleagues and family members, buy junk food and pick fights. And we are more likely to choose the status quo and avoid making choices that require significant thought or that imply significant change.
So What?
In a study of character strengths surveying more than 1 million people around the world, self-control came in dead last. Yet, self-control is one of the most important factors in your team’s ability to work well together, focus and get things done, and make good decisions. Your goal is not for your people to just physically to show up everyday, but to be able to harness their minds to the fullest extent possible toward achieving the company’s objectives.
So, here are some practical, tactical implications for CEOs, executives and managers to maximize how you use your and your team’s limited store of mental energy:
For Yourself:

1. Conserve your willpower by developing habits and routines that reduce the number of decision you have to make each day. This could include everything from a fixed rotation of outfits to eating the same meal for breakfast to planning and structuring your day in advance. Notice how brushing your teeth requires approximately zero willpower; once you create new habits and routines, you’ll free up mental energy for other decisions and goals.
2. Eat breakfast. Yet another piece of evidence that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Filling your brain with glucose (ideally slow-releasing glycogen in whole grains) at the beginning of the day will help to maximize your brain functioning.
3. Eat small meals throughout the day. To continually fill your stores of mental energy, try eating small meals and healthy snacks every few hours. Avoid making important decisions on an empty stomach when you’re less likely to have the energy to fully think through them.
4. Make your most important decisions first thing in the morning. If you know you have important decisions to make, it’s best to make them first thing in the morning (ideally after a nutritious breakfast) before your mental energy has been depleted by other decisions and temptations resisted throughout the day. Avoid making big decisions at the end of the day.  In their insightful HBR article entitled ‘Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time’, Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy recommend the following: “Every night, identify the most important challenge for the next day. Then make it your first priority when you arrive at work in the morning.”
5. Don’t make too many important decisions in a row. Since each decision depletes your ability to think clearly, try not to make too many decisions in sequence or even in one day.

For Your Teams:

1. Create clear rules, routines and processes that reduce the number of trivial decisions your team members need to make each day. While it’s important to give your team the autonomy to make key business decisions within their scope of responsibility, reducing the number of other, more trivial decisions they make throughout the day.
2. Serve breakfast. May employees roll out of bed and rush into work, without having a chance to eat breakfast. Serving breakfast at work can help fill your team’s stores of mental energy.
3. Keep your team well-fed throughout the day (ideally with healthy, slow-release glycogen-rich foods like whole grains). This is critical to optimal performance and decision-making, not just an employee perk. Have healthy snacks and consider providing nutritious meals.
4. Create organizational processes and routines that lead to big decisions being made early in the day by people who have full stomachs. When planning on-going meetings that require your team’s best thoughts and decision-making, try to schedule them toward the beginning of the day, and provide food if people haven’t eaten.
5. Minimize tempting distractions. To the extent possible, encourage your team members to keep only one window open on their computer and to shut down email, news sites and other non-relevant webpages while they’re working on a particular task. By eliminating the constant temptation to check that new email or news story, team members will be able to conserve the energy they would otherwise spend resisting these temptations.

Summary
Like dieters struggling to resist the temptation to eat without the fuel that would energize them to do the resisting, workers are increasingly being asked to work longer hours while having to make more and more complex decisions. Leaders will be well served to remember that (1) we have a finite store of mental energy for exercising self-control and making rational choices, (2) each decision we make depletes that store of mental energy, and  (3) the amount of glucose in our body directly impacts that store of mental energy. With this in mind, what will you do to start making better use of your and your team’s limited mental energy?

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Yo-Yo Dieting Alters The Way We Handle Stress

Published:December 3rd, 2010 Yo-yo dieting can change the way our body handles stress and can cause us to overeat, according to a new study published in the December 1 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. The findings of this study show that moderate diets can influence the way our brain responds to stress and crash diets can make us more susceptible to weight gain.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania had examined the hormone levels and behaviour of laboratory mice that were fed on limited diets. The mice lost 10 to 15% of body weight after three weeks of a fewer calorie diet similar to human diets. Previous studies showed that mice that have a lifelong calorie restricted diets live 50% longer than well-fed mice. Quick-fix diets led to an increased level of the stress hormone corticosterone and to depression like behaviour.

Several genes that are important in regulating eating and stress have changed, according to the researchers. Experiences that can alter the form and structure of DNA fall into the domain of epigenetics. Such epigenetic changes were reported to last even when mice started to be fed back to reach normal weights.

Results suggested that dieting not only increases stress, but it can also reprogram the way our brain responds to future stress and emotional drives for food. Future weight loss drugs should target such stress related molecules.

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Want To Losing Weight : Follow Ten Golden Rules of Dieting

Modifying our Diet is one of the keys to losing weight.

But the statistics on Diet successes aren’t angelical and only a real flyspeck proportionality of dieters reach indissoluble weight sum.

To amend you become one of those that do achieve abiding unit sum from dieting, here are Ten Auspicious Rules to Fasting that you can wish to helpfulness you lose those unclaimed inches and pounds.

Rule 1: Never Skip Breakfast

The old saying that ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ is certainly on the money when it comes to dieting.Nothing gets our metabolism going faster than breakfast after a good night’s sleep.Sleeping causes our metabolism to slow right down and breakfast kick-starts it again for us.

But always remember that just as important as having breakfast itself, it’s also important to choose healthy breakfast options like wholegrain cereals and breads, low-fat dairy products like milk and yogurt, and fruit or fruit juice.

Rule 2: Drink Plenty of Water and Get Plenty of Sleep

Drinking plenty of water and getting enough sleep are critically important when we are dieting.As well as helping to keep us healthy, drinking sufficient amounts of water can help us when dieting because it helps keep us feeling full and stops us from feeling hungry, and when we drink plenty of water we usually drink less soda, coffee and alcohol, all of which can add significant amounts of calories to our daily intake.

New links to the importance of sleep to weight loss are being uncovered all the time.One case in point was a series of studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association which showed that sleep loss can make weight loss far more difficult than it needs to be.So to make sure your weight loss doesn’t encounter any hidden barriers to success, drink lots of water and get plenty of sleep.

Rule 3: Count your Calories

Do you know how many calories you need to maintain your current weight and do you know how many calories you therefore need to consume in order to lose weight?

Once you know these things, you also need to keep track of how many calories you consume each day so that you can compare them to your target and make any necessary adjustments.Writing down your calorie consumption after each meal will help you realize how much of an effect the little piece of candy here and the occasional cookie there has on your weight.

Writing down your calorie consumption needn’t be hard, most of us eat the same things week in week out so chances are you’ll only need to get to know the energy values of a relatively small number of foods and drinks in order to keep track.

Rule 4: Don’t try to lose weight quickly

Gaining significant weight usually takes years and so should losing a significant amount of weight.Our bodies don’t like sudden and significant change; in fact it is built to resist it.

This resistance has a scientific name called homeostasis.When our body heats up to a temperature above its preferred level what happens?We sweat, which is an automatic response designed to cool us down to the preferred level again. That’s homeostasis at work.

When we lose weight too quickly, what happens?Our body automatically slows down its metabolism, that is, the rate at which we burn energy to survive and function. That’s homeostasis at work again.

In addition to keeping our body from fighting against us on the weight loss front, losing weight too quickly doesn’t work because early rapid weight loss usually results from losing body fluid and muscle tissue which is not healthy nor helpful in our battle to lose weight.

Rapid and significant weight loss from dieting alone is usually indicative of a very calorie restrictive diet which is also counterproductive because for most of us it is unsustainable.

Rule 5: It’s not just what you eat that counts

Weight gain isn’t a sign that we have been eating the wrong food; it is a sign that we have been eating too much food.The great news about this is that we don’t need to all start eating lettuce to lose weight; we just may need to cut down a little on the foods we enjoy each day.

Rule 6: Keeping your metabolism up

Muscle and activity keep our metabolism up which is why weight training to build or maintain our muscle mass and aerobic activity like walking, jogging, cycling and swimming are so important to those of us wanting to lose weight

Dieting alone is not the best route to weight loss and to staying in an ideal weight range.To lose weight safely and keep it off for as long as possible, always combine dieting and exercise.

Rule 7: You won’t continue to eat foods you don’t like

Most diets fail because they require us to eat plenty of foods we don’t actually like.If we don’t like what we’re eating we’re not going to stick with our diet for more than a week or two.

The key to successful dieting is to reduce the amount we eat and introduce healthier and lower calorie options of the foods we like gradually into our diet over time.

Rule 8: Watch what you drink as well as eat

Almost everything we drink, except water, has calories in it.Drinks highest in calories are typically sodas, colas and alcoholic drinks.If we typically drink a lot of any of these high calorie drinks, it may be them and not what we’re eating that is causing us to get fat.

This being the case, for many of us simply reducing these drinks or eliminating them altogether from our diet may be all that is necessary for us to lose a significant amount of fat and weight.

Rule 9: Avoid extremes of any kind

Balance is not only the key to a happy, healthy life; it is also the key to a healthy diet and dieting.Be very weary of any diets that completely cut out some foods or food groups or severely limit some foods or food groups, for example very low or no-carb diets.

Diets that are extreme in one way or another are likely to be very unhealthy at best and very dangerous to our health at worst.If you’re ever considering such a diet, which will probably promise very rapid and significant results, remember what we said about rapid weight loss and how our body is designed to maintain the status quo.

Rule 10: Seek help

If you have a lot of weight to lose, you’ve got a better chance of success if you get help.

If your weight is affecting your health to such an extent that it is or is becoming life-threatening or is leading to you suffering from weight related diseases like type-2 diabetes, seek medical help from a doctor or professional help from a dietician or another suitably qualified health care professional to lose weight immediately.

Even if your weight isn’t directly affecting your health now, it is a great idea to get help in your battle against the bulge from professionals like dieticians, personal trainers, gyms, psychologists (overeating is often caused by emotional factors) or weight loss program providers and other weight loss specialists.

In addition to getting professional help, non-professional help, support and encouragement is also vital in improving your chances of dieting success.For this type of help turn to friends, family and the support of other people with similar weight related goals, such as those that can be found on weight loss forums.

Good luck with your weight loss and remember that if you keep in mind the ten golden rules of dieting you are sure to be a dieting success story in the making.

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